1.3 Overview

The Tethering Control Channel Protocol facilitates the sharing of a server's Internet connection with one or more clients that are using Wi-Fi over Bluetooth transport. To initiate the connection, a client sends a request to a server to indicate that it is seeking to share the server's Internet connection. When the connection is successful, the server responds to the client with the appropriate Wi-Fi information. In the event that connection sharing is unsuccessful, the server returns an error message.

To use this protocol, the client is required to establish a secure, authenticated connection with the server that is capable of tethering. The client sends a request to the server to initiate tethering and to obtain the tethering configuration settings. In response, the server enables tethering, if it is not already enabled, and replies to the client with the tethering configuration settings, including the Wi-Fi service set identifier (SSID), basic service set identifier (BSSID), passphrase, and display name. The client uses these settings to connect to the tethering network. In the event that the server is unable to successfully enable tethering, the server sends the appropriate error message to the client.

Figure 1: Tethering Control Channel Protocol request-reply sequence